TIMELY TOPICS

...Meantime the Socialists collected the enormous number of 1,218,000 signatures to a national petition demanding the summoning of the Austrian Parliament...

...Why should we be extending so much credit to rehabilitate railroads for the sake of private owners...

...BANG...

...The Executive reports 370,833, as compared with 297,003 a year ago, a gain of 82,830, or close to 25 per cent...

...Scandinavian Socialist Conference at Copenhagen The Swedish representatives at the recent meeting in Copenhagen of the Joint Social-Democratic Committee of the northern countries were the Premier, Per Albin Hansson, and the Minister of Social Affairs, Gustav Mtiller, accompanied by the Organizing Secretary of the Party, Anders Nilsson...

...Still less will you be able to explain your defection to the multitudes in Europe who have hailed you as prophet and spokesman of their hopes...

...I have also been tremendously impressed by the excellence of municipal platforms and campaigns by our Party in many cities, large and sm*ll...

...I cite the municipal platform in Detroit as a beautiful illustration of the kind of thing we need...

...At Paterson, under the leadership of Comrades Hoedemaker and Dolder and others, there were 1200 present...

...Well, why not...

...But remember, each defection will weaken your influence...

...It is the latter district where Swedish Nazism has been exerting its greatest efforts and where the Socialist struggle against Nazi inroads is being carried on with the utmost vigor...

...You hope that the competition of this cooperative, or partially cooperative scheme aided by very heavy taxes upon capitalist industries...

...There are not words enough in the dictionary for you to explain to the great masses of common folk who have looked to your books for leadership the different sense in which you are a Democrat...

...This district is also the strongest section of the Party with a membership of 62,642...

...Swedish Socialist Party Continues Steady Growth The membership of the Swedish Socialist Party shows a continuous growth in all parts of the country...

...It will still further confuse and bewilder the masses of those who, however, much they may need a plan to end poverty, need even more an ideal, a philosophy to inspire them' to build a Cooperative Commonwealth, and an adequate organization to achieve that glorious goal...

...A manifesto of...

...Stockholm . comes second with 66,505...

...H. Goebel as speakers, and Clarence E. Moullette as Secretary of the Commiti . . tee...

...Have they ever succeeded...

...Words are symbols...

...The index of business activity is still dropping...

...No successful economic revolution is going to be won on the basis of the re-employment of the unemployed, important as that is...

...The lesson of the code is as plain as the nose on a man's face...

...Under that legislation union members have to' "contract in," that is, individual members must positively signify their desire to have part of their dues earmarked for political purposes...

...This is in effect a sentence to slow death by starvation for those advanced in years, and we should treat these superfluous people in a more humane manner, about as we do with animals...

...Why not a drive meeting in your town?—Help save the Rand School, and get funds for your cwn needs...

...If the President were to acquire the railroads for the nation, that would be another matter...

...It is to be won by capturing the commanding heights of modern industry and then connecting your program of unemployment with your general program...

...The same mercy should be shown to so-called human beings and municipal, state and federal institutions for this purpose should be established...

...At New Brunswick, under the fine energetic leadership of Comrades Thompson and Lillian Greenberg, Wednesday night, an audience of "outsiders" assembled so early and in such numbers that many of the regular Socialists did not get in at all...

...Over and over it has been proved possible, when desirable to the employers, to increase production by use of new machinery or new mechanical methods far faster than the rate at which the unemployed are taken back...

...With that legislation on the books the affiliated membership of the party has ceased to be as accurate an index of Labor Party strength as formerly...

...I am skeptical of the plan...

...Wilbur B. Davis ably presided at Paterson...

...Indeed, on the purely economic side NRA is a bit groggy...

...This is evidently a move to check any general strike as transport is important in any such strike...

...I foresee endless practical difficulties—psychological and economic—in the working out of your scheme which you have not even touched in your prophetic book...

...6, in West New York, August Claessens will speak in the Labor' Lyceum for the Drive...

...Some 350 young womer from the Teachers' College and Rutgers attended...

...x This is what is called inflation of credit...

...Will you once more don sackcloth and ashes as you did after you had left us in the World War...

...It has political and psychological advantages, but some of it is rather dubious economics...

...Now he is offering government loans which railroads can't get from banks in order that they may buy rails...

...Of course, there cannot yet be any compulsion, but on application everybody should get all possible assistance to depart for the great beyond in a comfortable way...

...UR rejoicing over the victory in the coal code must not blind us to the fact that collective bargaining and the 40 hour week, which is a longer working week than miners now have, will not cure this sick industry...

...They don't tell how LaGuardia in New York City or Sinclair in California will destroy corruption or end poverty...

...Esthonia...

...These institutions could be made self-supporting by producing bone meal and other fertilizers, perhaps even material for soap factories...

...which has principally a peasant population, is not free from the Fascist plague...

...But the advance has also been gratifying in hitherto more backward districts...

...That word with its capital D is a symbol for the party which bitterly discriminates not only against Negroes but white workers in the South...

...Thomas was at his very best, and it was a pleasure to an "Old Guard" to see the way these young people (prospective leaders of Tomorrow) drank it in, and held him for questiohs...

...LABOR PARTY GAINS HEAVILY IN MEMBERS LONDON...

...But I should be willing and perhaps even happy to- see you lead California in this type of experimentation if you still held aloft the banner of Socialism...

...Solomon, Crosswaith and Laidler are makirfg a fine campaign in New York, and the Town Hall meeting last Sunday was proof of the way in which Socialists are rallying behind' them...

...H. Goebel were the speakers at both meetings...

...Martin Farber, the secretary, declares it also will be a "Sel,-out...

...The Danish members were the Premier, Thorvald Stauning, and Alsing Andersen...

...for the party of Tammany Hall in New York, and Hague in New Jersey...

...Also he has had the government buy $75,000,000 worth of foodstuffs to distribute to the unemployed and to help farmers...

...Reports submitted there showed that in the first six months of this year, in spite of severe industrial depression, the affiliated membership bad grown from 5,200 to 0,000...

...The Finnish Party Secretary, K. H. Wiik, also attended the meeting...

...And that, of course, is Socialism...

...That development is the more remarkable because originally the Labor Party was a federation of trade unions and of Socialist parties...

...Norman Thomas, Charles Solomon Dr...

...The Communists showed much less strength than at previous congresses...

...Another of these drive meetings will be held this Saturday night, Sept...

...He is trying to bring about an increase in business activity and some rise in prices by making bank credit easy and prodding banks into extending it...

...Do you really think you will be nominated for Governor...

...Of the total membership on January 1st, 1933, 42,155 were women...

...It is far too late in this day of an interdependent world and of the national economics promoted by the New Deal for any state, even California, to end poverty in blissful disregard of other states...

...is a mild way of ** reporting the meetings Friday night at Peterson and Passaic, and Wednesday night at New Brunswick under auspices of the respective Branches and The Save-ThePeople's House Drive Committee...

...Everywhere we have institutions where unwanted cats and dogs are painlessly dispatched from this sad world...

...Pranches, Workmen's Circles, or other groups wishing meetings should write .him at the Rand School...

...In both cases substantial sums were left in the Branch Treasuries, this being not the least of the good features of the drive meetings under the direction of Geo...

...Big Thomas-Rand School Meetings Break Records DING...

...H. Goebel...

...Doubtless your so-called epic plan for ending poverty in California is Socialist in inspiration and makes use of some Socialist immediate demands...

...They tell how workers with hand and brain if they awake and unite can do the job...

...Chancellor Dolifuss has taken over all cabinet posts, has snnounced the elimination of all political parties, and the proposed new constitution will set up an appointive council to outrank the two chambers...

...The Director of Federal Railways has also issued an order to all railway workers to join the "patriotic front" of Chancellor Dolifuss or lose their jobs...

...The President evidently sees this...

...It was decisively defeated Dolifuss Advances to Dictatorship in Austria Austria drifts to a form of Fascism...

...A MODEST PROPOSAL By Morris Schaye TPHE American custom to refuse * jobs to applicants not for inability to do the work but on account of age is in - this economic crisis more apparent than ever...

...Despite Upton and Paul WHATEVER Upton Sinclair and Paul Blanshard may say, I have been encouraged by the response to Socialism I have found on various trips, notably on various speaking engagements in New Jersey...

...On Wednesday a Socialist leader at a party press conference shouted: "Touch our City Hall and you touch olf a general strike...

...What you are now trying has on some scale been tried over and over...

...yes, and because 30,000 of them around Uniontown, Pennsylvania, forced the issue by striking...

...Impatient Socialists have said we will capture the old parties...

...You alone, or you with the help of a certain number of California voters, cannot make the word Democratic a symbol for Socialism...

...The increase in 1932 was-16,291 members and 220 local branches...

...the Socialist Party protesting against the Dolifuss measurts was confiscated by the police...

...If so, we shall again welcome you back...

...Early in the year a proposal for diminishing the powers of Parliament and increasing .hose of the President was supported by the bourgeois parties, but opposed by the Socialists and trade unionists anc also by the Nazis, who were dissatisfied becaus- it was not drastk enough...

...will bring about the triumph of your new order...

...Besides, this innovation " would give some nice political jobs for the management of these plants...

...The Baldwin ministry, following the General Strike of 1926, passed legislation placing obstacles in the path of unions joining the Labor Party...

...Probably I shall want to review your book in more detail when it is released...

...It is not true that strikes automatically defeat the purpose of NRA...

...On Friday night, Oct...

...Now I can only say that if you can get the power to make this new system work for the unemployed, you can get the power to take over the general economic system which is a far less wasteful plan and more likely to succeed...

...Your plan requires you to set up within the framework of capitalism a separate economic system for the unemployed who under state authorities will be settled on farms or put into factories...

...If you are not nominated will you return to the Socialist Party, perhaps bringing some of your new Democratic adherents with you...

...The number registered as unemployed was 88,270...

...Things are slowing down...

...To Upton Sinclair r\i:AK UPTON SINCLAIR: . *^ Our conversation and my reading of the galley proofs of your forthcoming book convince me that you are still a Socialist at heart and in intention and that you believe that somehow or other you are furthering Socialism by the extraordinary course you have taken in leaving the Party, enrolling as a Democrat, and seeking the gubernatorial nomination on the.Democratic ticket in California...

...The largest increases are registered by Stockholm (2,684 new members) and by tho district of Skane (2537 new members and 27 new locals...

...The Drive committee want to pay special tribute to the comrades at both places for the wonderful, efficient, comradely manner in which they carried these meetings to success...

...That code included regions like Logan County, West VirKnia, which had been so closed to union organisers at to be ridden out on a rail was a minor punishment to one who mignt venture in...

...En route to the New Brunswick meeting, Comrades A. LaMonte and G. F. Gluck of Bound Brook did a little "chiseling" by having Thorn..* there to dinner, then address a personally invited group for some 30 minutes, finally driving him to New Brunswick, and as a sort of penance, bringing along $21 for the drive which they had collected from that same group...

...The voting age will be raised to 26 and u prison camp will be established to intern active Nasis serving Hitler...

...California will have separate scrip for the unemployed to use in exchanging these goods...

...In addition to paid admissions, a collection of some $45 was taken at Passaic, and $102.50 at Paterson...

...Frank Kingdon and Geo...

...A class of individual memberships was added only about ten years ago...

...For you to haul that down is a loss to us not to be compensated by any of the dubious gains of your program, even in the doubtful event of your being in a position to attempt it...

...The coal miners got what the automobile workers did not get because they were "organized...

...Fascists Active in Esthonia TPHE trade unions of little * Esthonia held their fourth national congress at Talinn a few weeks ago...

...It is more logical to go in for straight production for use...

...Despite widespread poverty and unemployment, and despite the further fact that the bulk of the strength of the Labor Party consists of labor unions affiliated en bloc, reports issued by the Party Executive show a heavy increase in individual memberships in the party, during the past year...

...At Passaic, Comrade Fischer, Secretary, there were 700, these audiences in both cases being record-breakers for even campaign times...

...This will be financed by a vast sale of bonds to the public...

...It is yet to be shown how far you can tinker with the price structure under capitalism with safety...

...In case after case they are precisely what gives vitality to it...

...This, is bold...

...No matter if your book has a great circulation, it can never catch up with the news that has already flown round the earth that Upton Sinclair, the Socialist, has turned Democrat at the very hour when the decadence of capitalism and the hopeless inadequacy of capitalist parties was most manifest...

...Sincerely yours, (Signed) NORMAN THOMAS...

...And if not, what are we to do with aged men over 40 who are no longer wanted by employers...

...On January 1st, 1933, the Party membership had reached the hitherto unknown figure of 812,798 members distributed among 1,957 local branches...

...30th, in Camden at New Moose Hall, with Thomas, Frank Manning, and Geo...